Letters to the Editor
Amerigo
Published Letters: 955 Editor's Choice: 60
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Dog lives, grandpa dies
[Read the article: Should we euthanize the Yorkie?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So the dog, which is driving grandfather to expressing suicidal ideas, lives, but grandpa can suck it up.
I don't think I agree with this advice.
We keep pets because we enjoy keeping pets. We teach them to be decent pets, not to poop in the house, not to annoy people, and not to get underfoot. They in turn allow themselves to be stroked and amuse we humans with their simple animal ways. Yorkshire terriers are small, so usually they cannot sniff women's crotches, which is a mercy, but they are nasty little creatures when they get old and cannot keep themselves clean.
The normal procedure with pets is that we take good care of them until they are no good, then we have them humanely terminated. And that is it until we see them again in heaven. Oh, no, they don't go to heaven do they, unless the owner is under the age of 8.
Then, and this is the clincher, we get a new or reconditioned pet and whip it into shape. Perhaps whip is not the best choice of words, but I am tired tonight.
Who knows whether this Yorkie needs to beg for its last meal and take a trip to the lethal injection chamber. The lifespan of a healthy Yorkshire terrier is about 12-15 years.
It sounds to me like a close thing. Of course the life span of pet dogs is already extended by association with us humans, as domesticated dogs living in the wild usually fall prey to disease, parasite, and malnutrition much more rapidly.
The grandmother might like a new puppy, preferably something with a better temperament than a Yorkshire terrier.
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Apologies
[Read the article: Is race dying? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While we all agree that there are bad white people out there, we all agree black guys had it rough, we also note that while blacks have demanded appology after appology India and China have become successful and Zimbabwe has become a hellhole - just like pretty much the rest of Africa.
Interesting article I read in the last week mentioned descendants of cannibals in Fiji who cooked and ate a missionary apologizing to descendents of their ancestor's dinner.
The article went to to discuss just how far apologies for this kind of thing can go on, for example Tony Blair apologising for the Irish potato famine, and extended the argument to point out that in the early days of the industrial revolution in England (white) children were used as virtual slave labor in factories working 16-hour days from the age of 7 until death, which often followed fairly soon.
I think we are all sorry that these things happened and surely we are all in agreement that them days are gone and that the world is a better place for it. Much of the improvement since has occurred partly because we have seen the light, partly because of ethical leadership from enlightened individuals, and largely, I suspect, thanks to improvements in technology.
But through how many generations must the aftereffects continue?
It can hardly be denied that the US federal and state governments have done all they can to provide equality of opportunity to all races and skin colors, and large corporations seem to have followed suit. Simply from a profit point of view of any business that is a national chain can hardly afford to lose the custom of any significant sector of the market, and any restaurant chain or retail store, for example, that was boycotted by blacks would have its profit margins and potential for growth blighted--which would reflect badly on management in the eyes of shareholders.
If all drug control laws were immediately abolished and all persons in prison on drug related offences immediately turned loose into their communities and offered free education and job training would this be welcomed as the Great Apology and a chance for a new start as hundreds of thousands of black men were released from captivity?
Or would it lead to a Mariel boatlift type situation, where the state of Florida, twenty years on, is still dealing with the criminals and lunatics sent by Castro to enjoy a life a freedom.
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I will vote for Obama for president...
[Read the article: Michelle Obama gets real]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If Obama wins the Democratic Party nomination, I am going to vote for him in the General Election.
Now, I am only one person, and I live in a small town in a small county in a big state that begins with an F.
But two elections ago, if my county had gone for Gore and not Bush, we would not be in Iraq now and Bush would have gotten an F grade, and would be a footnote in the almanac and a Jeopardy! question. (This president's son himself became a governor and ran for president...)
I only have one vote, but there are about half a dozen other people who owe me favors, and I don't mind giving them a ride the polls, as I never work on Tuesdays.
The interesting question is who will be his running mate.
Hillary? Surely not, though the thought of Bill and Hillary as VPs is intriguing.
Bill Richardson is possibly my next choice. Surely he can deliver New Mexico, which is a marginal, though not awfully big, and he can definitely do TV commercials in Spanish, which is good for a few more votes in the F state which is a must win and has many Univision watchers. I would advise him to position his commercials in the soccer games.
Of course experience always counts, and who has the most experience at being a Vice President? Choosing Cousin Cheney would certainly be a bipartisan pick, but the man is in lousy health and is a jackbooted fascist imbecile to boot, so how about Albert Gore, who also has 8 years experience of hanging around the West Wing, enabled Internet legislation that has proved to be most successful, and has won a Nobel Prize for elevating environmental awareness. He also has no known public record of having shown interest in sex or of having been an object of lust.